christian altruism is pity and pride; agape is suicide.
At some point Christendom audaciously turned love into agapao—a sort of thoughtful selfless love. God died because of selfless love. Now christians everywhere go about proclaiming their ’selfless love’ for one another and live rich and spiritually costless lives. If you really think that you are able to love like Christ then kill yourself for your cause and at your funeral we will all proclaim your selfless sacrifice and christ-likeness, enjoy a good free meal, prematurely pronounce you as heaven bound and then move on with our lives–we’d be better of for it and you will have received the reward that you so desired. Selfless love doesn’t want to be sacrificed, which is exactly why it’s a sacrifice.
What Christendom means when it proclaims and praises its own selfless love is that it pities others who aren’t ’selfless’, or who are having difficulty maintaining the self-autonomy that the American dream demands of them. Pity for all is the most disgusting aspect of Christendom, it is pure pride and self-love. I’m thinking of many a Christian’s bullshit altruism that sinks low at the altar, that loudly proclaims its own sins—sins for the most part which are easily admitted and not so bad after all—and when all is said and done proudly walks back to its pew as an example of being a good “Christian.”
I don’t have pity for Christians I scoff at them. I disrespect their self-proclamations of love, and in doing so pay them a higher respect than their Christian altruism and Christian pity would. My pride is honest I stab you in the stomach, not the back. I pay you the hard respect of honesty.
“‘Pity for all’–would be hardness and tyranny toward you, my dear neighbor.” Your pity necessitates your elevation in pride, so be proud, pity your neighbor, but don’t pretend like it is a selfless love that rivals that of your ’savior’, after all if you love like that you don’t really have a savior, you really believe you have saved yourself and saved your neighbor.
Haha, the altruistic suicide that is the Christian faith. Nietzsche scoffed at the church for similar reasons (though I think that he respected the one real Christian). I will say that I disagree with your interpretation of agape (if I am understanding what you are saying). I think that agape, selfless unrestrained love for all, simply causes a diminished value for that disposition. For example, if everyone started passing out hundred dollar bills around to everyone else, suddenly the value of the currency diminishes rapidly! The same, I think, can be said about love and respect. The analysis following post-modern ideas concerning proclaiming of sins and feeling like a ‘good Christian’ I think is to the point. However, I wonder if to pity is to be proud? Is this the case if you pity but do nothing to aid the person pitied? I wonder-
Adam
October 5, 2009 2:21 pm at 2:21 pm
Do not pity and pride require one another? A prophet once said: “Have you embraced all joy and happiness? Surely, my brothers, then you have embraced all sorrow and trembling also.”
To have pity is to be full of pride.
Dave Bennett
October 5, 2009 10:45 pm at 10:45 pm